The Beatles Tell Us That We've Hit The Concert Price Ceiling

The recent release of the Beatles catalog on iTunes made me think - what did a ticket to see them at their live peak cost? 

Answer: a prime seat to see the Beatles in Chicago 1966 cost $5.75 - in today’s dollars this is $37.60 - almost ten times less than what you would pay for a huge act today. 

Things were different then of course - touring was done mainly to promote record sales and tickets were priced below market purposely to make sure shows were safely sold out and to reward fans for their record-buying loyalty.  This produced what economists call a consumer surplus.  Some of that surplus was soaked up by the secondary ticketing market.

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